Mary, Quite Contrary
by MariaShadow
Summary: G1. Proof that it is possible for a normal female high school student to come into contact with the Transformers and not fall in love.
1. Chapter 1

_Some say the Stig is allergic to Mary Sues... _

_This story has come about through a general frustration with the sheer volume of badly written Mary Sues in Transformers fan fiction. While, granted, everyone has to start somewhere, there does come a point where enough is enough. This story is a reaction to this, and it's sole purpose, as stated in the summary, is to demonstrate that it is possible to create a character who is a normal teenage girl and is actually _normal_, who hasn't got a backstory full of angst or butt-length hair, and have her come into contact with Transformers and not die/be greviously wounded, be changed into a Transformer or fall in love with one. _

_Thanks to everyone on LJ and MSN who has been cheering/egging me on, offering full and helpful reviews, critiques, advice, the occasional bit of insanity and has suffered through my piecemeal posting habits._

_

* * *

_

_BBBbrrrrrrrrinnnnnng!_

The bells of Portland High rang for the final time that day and signaled the release of 500-odd teenagers into the bright spring sun of the unsuspecting outside world.

Mallory Kirke elbowed her way through a bunch of brain-dead jocks and their vapid-eyed gaggle of cheerleaders blocking off part of the stairs, stepped over the three-inch wide crack on the sidewalk that the council still hadn't fixed yet and threaded through the rapidly dispersing crowd to where Emma Reese was waiting under an oak tree that had had about half of it's branches neatly sheared off.

"Hey Em, another great afternoon in the great metropolis of Portland, eh?" Mallory asked. Emma snapped her gum and rolled her eyes, a smile twitching the corners of her lips. It'd been their standard joke/greeting since last year. Emma pushed off the miraculously alive tree and the pair headed towards town.

A red pickup roared past them as they walked, belching smoke. The driver honked the horn at the pair of girls while his passengers- a good chunk of the football team- hooted and hollered. Emma eyed the truck and it's contents disdainfully. "Jocks." She muttered. "And Staine's the worst." Emma announced, jerking her thumb in the direction of the the rapidly disappearing truck.

"I still can't believe Staine tried to take on Witwicky," Mallory commented as they walked into the outskirts of the city. "I mean, sure, he's not a jock like Staine, but he works on oil rigs over summer. That's gotta be tough. Plus he hangs out with those giant alien robots too."  
Emma snapped her gum again and grimaced. "Remember what happened when Staine made that crack about Spike's mom? He deserved that black eye."  
"Yeah. I'm just surprised it took so long for Spike to hit the jerk."  
"Uh huh. If'd been me I woulda dodged the first punch and hit him right after that instead of spending all that time waiting."  
"Mmhmm. It was kinda funny though."Mallory slid a grin at her friend. "Watching that two-tonne jerk trying to hit Spike and not laying a finger on him I mean."  
"Too right!"

The friends shared a laugh outside the Killer Rig Auto Shop. "Here's my stop." Mallory sighed, looking up at the dented metal sign over the door. "I'll see you tomorrow in math, okay?"  
"Okay Mal, see ya there." Emma tossed off a wave as she headed home, blowing another bubble of bright pink gum as she left.

Mallory turned towards the door, squared her shoulders and glanced up to the sky. "Please let him be out today. Please?" She begged, then carefully eased open the door.

"Mallie!"

She found herself snatched up in a crushing, oil-and-metal-scented embrace. "Uncle Jake! Ribs!"  
"Oh, sorry." Uncle Jake, proud owner of Killer Rig, gently put his niece down and grinned at her. "Thanks for coming out to fill in for Gracie. Poor girl's down with the flu."  
"It's no big problem Uncle Jake." Mallory straightened out her clothes and brushed herself off. "I can still do my homework, right?"  
"Yep, just answer the 'phone and check off customers in the log book at the desk."  
"And coffee! Don't forget the coffee! Four o'clock sharp!" Someone hollered from the workshop.  
"Can it Monkey, you can make your own coffee for a week!" Uncle Jake yelled back, then offered an apologetic smile to Mallory. "That was Monkey, don't mind him, okay? He's just gotten a little too used to Gracie."  
"Uhh..whatever you say, Uncle Jake." Mallory managed a hesitant smile in return.

Uncle Jake laughed and clapped her across the back. "That's my girl!" He chuckled, then headed over to the open door of the workshop and the various busy sounds of metal, machinery and rock music that echoed out from within.

Mallory made her escape to the reception desk and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was neat and tidy, with a little bunch of flowers in a porcelain vase and hardly an oil spot in sight. She'd only met Gracie a couple of times, but it was obvious that she was a very neat, very organised person.

How she'd ended up working at Uncle Jake's auto shop was a complete mystery to Mallory Kirke.

Never the less, Mallory settled herself in, played with the chair settings until it was comfortable and dug the current bane of her existence out of her bag- Algebra.

Half an hour crawled by as she wrestled with quadratics, then the bell over the door tinkled as a customer walked in. Mallory looked up and pasted on a friendly smile. "Welcome to Killer Rig, how can I help you?" She'd been rehearsing the line in her head since lunchtime and hoped it came out right.  
"Hi Grac..." He blinked. "Oh sorry, hey there Mallory."  
"Spike?" Mallory flushed a little. Being recognised by someone from school had been her biggest fear about taking the job here, but she knew enough about Spike to know he wouldn't say anything about it, even though he wasn't allowed in Portland High anymore. "Gracie's sick, I'm filling in." She explained.  
"Ah." Spike nodded. "I'm here to pick up an order, should be under 'Witwicky'."

Mallory nodded and bent over the thick log book of different jobs. "Let's see.."she murmured "that's the repairs for the Tan family... and the doctor's motorcycle...no, that's not it, that's about a Toyota Yaris...ah ha, here we go! Assorted auto parts?" She looked up at the slightly older Spike, curiosity clear.  
Spike hitched one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Sometimes it's easier to get stock parts and modify them." He explained.  
"Oh, that makes sense." Mallory nodded and picked up the 'phone to call the workshop. A few minutes of haggling with Monkey over the fact that no, she wasn't going to make coffee and he wouldn't like her coffee anyway, and she was able to report that her uncle had the parts and he was taking them out for him now.

"It'll take a few minutes for him to find it all." Mallory reported. "He'll take it out front to your..." she leaned out to look through the large reception window to see what vehicle Spike had brought with him...and saw a pair of giant black legs blocking out the afternoon sunlight. She paled, green eyes wide. "...is that..?"  
Spike glanced over to the window and nodded. "Yep, that's Trailbreaker out there. He's a nice guy, do you want to meet him?"  
"Meet him?" Mallory squeaked and shrunk back behind the receptionist desk and it's dubious protection. The memories of the incident that led to the principal formally requesting Spike to leave and finish his high school diploma from home were still fresh in her mind, even though it happened two months ago.

To her surprise, Spike walked around the desk, took her gently by the elbow and guided her out to the window. "He's one of the Autobots, the good guys." He explained gently. "He's just like a normal person, and he feels terrible when people are scared of him."  
"But...he's so huge!" She watched with astonishment as her uncle walked out of the yard with a windscreen in his gloved hands. The robot... Trailbreaker, she corrected herself, reached down, gently took it between two blunt fingers...and the glass promptly vanished.

"What...what did he do?" Mallory stammered  
"Subspace." Spike answered. "All transformers have what they call subspace 'pockets' where they can put stuff."  
"Oh...sounds like something outta Star Trek." She laughed nervously, still staring up at the mech.  
Spike chuckled. "Heh, yeah, you're right about that. Sure, they're aliens here, but they act so human I forget that they come from a different planet. They're regular people Mallory, nothing to be scared of. C'mon, let's go talk to him." He gently urged her.

Somehow she found herself outside, still with Spike's hand on her elbow (probably to keep her from running away screaming, mused the one corner of her mind that wasn't going "GIANT ALIEN ROBOT! AAAAHHHHH!" and running around in circles.)

"Hey Trailbreaker, there's someone here to meet you." Spike called up at the living mass of metal and machinery.  
The big, black mech turned and smiled, kneeling down to get a better look. "Hey there, my name's Trailbreaker." He introduced himself, careful to not make any sudden movements.  
"Hi." Mallory squeaked, nervously tucking a lock of brown hair back behind her ear "I'm Mallory. I used to go to school with Spike." Why she felt the need to say that, Mallory had no idea.  
"Oh?" Trailbreaker chuckled. "Between you and me Mallory, I've never understood that place. Seems like a waste to spend so much time cooped up inside."  
Mallory felt a weak smile creep across her face. "Heh, yeah. Especially in summer. It's just too nice outside." She heard herself say. The larger portion of her mind stopped screaming 'GIANT ALIEN ROBOT!' and switched tracks to 'I'M TALKING TO A GIANT ALIEN ROBOT!'

Unfortunately, a buzzing interrupted anything further that they might have said. Spike frowned and plucked a slim black object with a screen from his belt, looking at it. Trailbreaker tilted his head to one side and seemed to be listening to something neither human could hear. "Sorry Mallory, we've got to go." Spike frowned and put the thing back on his belt. "Something's come up. Tell Jake we'll be back tomorrow, okay?"  
"Uh...okay." Mallory stepped back as Trailbreaker stood and moved to the road. There was a mechanical sound and a boxy vehicle rested where he had stood. Spike ran to him and climbed in the door that obligingly popped open, then the two roared off.

Still dazed, Mallory wandered back inside, picked up the 'phone and called the workshop to pass the message on.

Emma was never, ever, ever going to believe this.

0o0o0

The next day she was proven quite right.

"...I don't believe it." Emma gasped, eyes wide. "Oh. My. Gosh. You _talked _to one of them!"  
"Yeah." Mallory nodded. "His name was Trailbreaker, he came to Uncle Jake's shop with Spike to pick up an order."  
"Oh my gosh...what was he like?"  
"What was who like?"

Both girls looked at the speaker- Victoria May, aspiring track and field athlete and fellow detainee of second period math with Ms Grichee (a.k.a Ms Grinch when she wasn't listening. No student was stupid enough to even think of saying it to her face. Not even the jocks.)

"Mallie met an Autobot yesterday." Emma informed her, albeit a tad smugly. No 'run of the mill' student ever passed up a chance to show off in front of a sports student, especially in a sports-orientated school like this one.  
"You met one of those things?" Victoria looked at Mallory with disbelief.  
"Yup. Trailbreaker, some kinda four by four looking thing, black."She replied. "He's nice." Mallory couldn't help but add, completely forgetting her prior fear.

"Huh." Victoria paused, thinking. "Hey, you guys remember what happened to Staine's car?"  
"Yeah..." Emma frowned. "Why?"  
"Well, it happened after the fight with Witwicky, right?" Victoria smiled. No sports student ever missed the opportunity to out think a 'brain' student, even ones as remotely 'brain' designated as these two. "You should ask that Trailbreaker guy how Staine's car ended up in there."  
"Yeah, you should!" Emma chimed in eagerly.  
"Uuh...okay." Mallory couldn't help a small feeling of worry coil in the back of her mind. Just what on earth had she gotten herself into?

0o0o0

When Mallie reached the Killer Rig that afternoon (on her own this time, Emma had flute lessons on Tuesdays) she couldn't spot Trailbreaker's boxy black vehicle form in the rough parking area. Instead there were two expensive looking cars with decals and racing paints all over them. She gave them a curious look and shrugged, pushing the door open to go and clock in for the afternoon.

"Oh, hey Spike." Mallory smiled at Spike, who was sitting in a slowly dying armchair with a clear view of the parking lot and thumbing through an auto magazine, looking pretty bored.  
"Hey Mallie." Spike nodded back.

Mallory spent a few minutes organising the mess of receipts that had appeared on the desk and fished the Grinch's latest attempt to murder her class with algebra out of her backpack. "So, uh, where's Trailbreaker?" She asked. "I didn't see him outside."  
"Oh he's fine." Spike kept his manner relaxed and calm, seeing no need to tell her that they'd been in a battle and Trailbreaker had lost an arm to the Seeker trine. Besides, it was true, Trailbreaker was quite fine in Ratchet's care. "I came with Jazz and Wheeljack this time."  
"Jazz? As in the music?" Mallie queried, looking out through the window at the two cars.

One of them flickered it's lights at her and Spike chuckled. "Yep, that's him. Music nut, naturally. And yep, he can hear us. Very sensitive audios, ears." He added the translation at the last minute.  
"Oh." Mallie wasn't too sure how to reply to that, and changed topics accordingly. "Hey Spike, did you hear about what happened to Staine's car after your fight?"  
Spike sat up a little, interested. "No...he drove that black and white Mustang, right? What happened to it?"

Mallie tucked some hair back behind her ear, a little self-conscious. "Well...during the school centennial it kinda vanished out of the parking lot and they found it in the school pool. The gates were chained and no one could figure out how it got there."  
Spike laughed and slid a look in the Autobots' direction. "Oh really? I wonder how that happened." He commented rather mildly, raising his voice a little just to make it obvious whom he was actually addressing. Outside, both cars seemed to sink a little lower on their wheels as if they were trying to avoid being noticed.

"No, I don't think they did it." Spike replied when Mallie asked if they'd been the culprits. "But I bet they know who did."  
"Are you going to tell anyone? I mean, it's against the rules, isn't it?" Mallory queried.  
"There's no way I can prove it." Spike shrugged. "And there's no way that they're going to own up to it. I'm their friend, and these guys can be pretty protective of their own sometimes. The way they see it, Staine crossed a line when he made the crack about my mom. Sure, I gave him a black eye for it, but the school got me in trouble, so they decided to punish him for me."  
"Ah. Kinda like the big brothers from hell?"  
"Yeah, sorta." Spike chuckled.

Half an hour passed in friendly joke-swapping with Spike and the two Autobots via Spike's little black box from yesterday, described as a combination secure radio and pager. Privately, Mallory decided that the Autobots, as friendly as they seemed, were far less intimidating as cars than as giant alien robots that could turn you into street pizza if they tripped.

The intermittent stream of traffic kept the two Autobots from transforming to have a proper conversation as they would have preferred. Understandably enough, they liked to keep a low profile if they could, for their suppliers' sake if nothing else.

"_Incoming, we'd better chill for a bit."_ Jazz advised from the tiny speaker.  
"Copy Jazz." Spike put the radio-pager back on his belt and looked out the window to see who was coming. Mallory did too, and let out a loud groan when she saw the big red truck roar up and screech into the parking lot. "Oh kill me now, it's Staine!"  
"Staine?" Spike's eyes tightened a little and he rose, the chair creaking it's protest. He pushed open the door just as the quarterback jumped down from his truck and sauntered out, two of his teammates flanking him.

Staine grinned maliciously when he saw the slighter built Spike. "Hey runt, I heard I could find you here."  
Spike put one hand on Jazz's bonnet, then touched Wheeljack's as he walked towards Staine, silently asking the two Autobots to stay quiet. "Oh?"

Mallory meanwhile, bit her lip and called for her uncle. She had no idea how Staine found out about her meeting Trailbreaker, or how he found out that she met him here, but that didn't really matter right now. What mattered was somehow keeping the jock, obnoxious as he was, from being turned into a greasy red smear and keeping Spike from getting his jaw broken by said obnoxious jock.

Aforementioned jock had by now closed the distance and stabbed one blunt finger at Spike's chest, his flunkies leaning back against the truck and grinning in anticipation at the carnage they were sure was to come. "What happened to my Mustang, runt?" Staine snarled, putting on an impressive threat display.  
Spike remained impassive. "What makes you think I had anything to do with it?" He asked mildly, arms hanging loose at his sides. "Do I look like I could pick a car up and drop it in a pool?"

The quarterback's brow creased in a frown. "You think you know everything, runt!" He accused. "Well lemme tell you something, you don't!" And with that, he swung one meaty fist at Spike's head.

What followed was an almost exact repeat of the now fabled fight of corridor five. Spike ducked and wove around the larger Staine, hands in his pockets and completely relaxed. Staine roared like an enraged bull, face red and mottled with growing rage as his target continued to effortlessly dodge his attacks.

Finally, seemingly bored by the whole charade, Spike sidestepped a lunge, stuck out one foot and sent Staine sprawling into the dust and grit.

Staine growled and worked his way to a kneeling position, spitting and wiping blood off his chin. Spike crouched, just out of arms' reach, and offered his 'opponent' a small smile. "Staine, a little piece of advice. I roll with giant alien robots to go fight other giant alien robots. A high school bully doesn't scare me."  
Staine gave him a purely malevolent glare. "F-..."

"Don't even think about it."

Jake prodded the kneeling quarterback with a hefty pipe wrench to emphasise his point. Monkey (who was built more like a gorilla to be perfectly honest) stood nearby, arms crossed over his chest as he eyeballed the two football players, just daring them to come to the defence of their quarterback.

Uncle Jake hefted his wrench again as Staine got to his feet. "Clear outta here before I call the cops and have you pulled up for assault." Jake growled, looming threatening over the teenager.  
"Whatever." Staine snarled and stormed back to his truck, livid.

Jake watched the truck roar out, then turned to his niece, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Mallie? Do you have something you wanna tell me?"

Mallie bit her lip, scuffing the ground with one foot. This...was not going to be pretty.

0o0o0

Second period math the next day, and Mallie was slumped in her chair, idly doodling in the margins of her workbook. Ms Grinch was sick so they had the baseball coach as a substitute. He didn't really care about algebra and gave them instructions to the tune of 'Siddown and zip it' while he worked on a pile of permission slips and other such things for a tournament he was sending the seniors to.

A folded scrap of paper appeared on her desk. Mallie took it, unfolded it and read the short note inside- _You okay Mallie? What happened? _She scribbled a short note back, explaining what happened yesterday, how much trouble she was in and passed it back.

A second note landed on her desk a moment later. This one just had two words. _Victoria May_.

0o0o0

They found her and cornered her at lunch, in her usual spot with all the other track and field/other similar sports stars. Emma wasted no time, marching straight to her and crossing her arms. "Did you tell him?" She demanded.

Victoria blinked and looked up at the two girls. "Tell who what?"  
"Staine. Did you tell Staine?" Emma shot back.

There was a fairly uncomfortable pause.

Though normally no 'uncool' student would dare accuse a 'cool' student of anything, things tended to be a little different when the accuser was the Principal's darling granddaughter.

Victoria shifted a little, quite aware that if she lied, Emma would take her suspicions to the principal anyway and no one, not even a jock, dared to lie to him. "I... might've mentioned something." She hedged.

"For your information," Emma said, raising her voice just enough to let the next table hear it too, "Staine went and hunted down Spike and tried to attack him again outside the shop. The owner was gonna charge him with assault."

She paused, just long enough to let that little bombshell sink in, smiled sweetly and turned, tugging Mallie along with her. "C'mon, let's go." She said.

Once out of earshot, Mallie glanced at her friend rather warily. "You know the rumour mills are gonna get that all over the school by the end of the day...right?"  
"Yep." Emma smirked. "Figured I'd use the rumour mill to my advantage for once. I've had enough of rumours getting spread about me."

Mallie gave her a mock-scared look. "Evil. Genius."

0o0o0

That afternoon, as Mallie approached the Killer Rig, she bit her lip and noted with mild concern the complete lack of cars in the parking lot, aside from her uncle's and Monkey's. There wasn't even a hint of something that might-be-a-Giant-Alien-Robot. The shop was strangely quiet too. No machinery, no rock music, no voices. Mallie frowned further and pushed the reception door open.

The tinkle of the bell was startlingly loud in the silence.

Chalking it all up to some sorta shop owners/adult thing she didn't know about yet, Mallie took her place behind the free standing desk and started sorting out the very messy pile of papers left there, not to mention the two tapes that someone had left next to Monkey's old boombox on the corner of the desk.

She was almost through the pile when she shifted a newspaper and found a very odd note scribbled on the desk itself in greasepencil.

It was a phone numer, followed by 'Mallie call now!'

"Huh...I wonder what this is..." Mallie sat and frowned at the number. It wasn't any number she knew, not her parents, any one of the numerous uncles and aunties from either side of the family nor any emergency contact that she knew about. She took one last quick look in the workshop (a mess, but nothing new there), Uncle Jake's office (strangely tidy) and the back room (neat as a pin). Still finding no one, her hand strayed to the telephone parked on the desk. "Guess I'd better try it." Mallie murmured to herself and picked up the handset.

Something on the other end of the line clicked a couple of times and then it started ringing. Mallie waited patiently, expecting an answer after five or six rings like usual, so she was rightfully surprised when after the second ring an authoritative voice (upon later reflection she decided he sounded like a male version of Ms Grinch in one of her moods) barked a brisk 'State your business' at her.

"Uh, I'm Mallie, sorry, Mallory..." She stammered a bit, caught completely off guard. "My uncle left a note at the shop for me to call this number..."  
_"What is your last name, your uncle's name and the name and location of his shop?_"The Voice snapped at her.  
"Kirke...and his name's Jake Kirke, and it's the Killer Rig Auto Shop, 54 Descat street..."  
_"Is your uncle there?_" The Voice interrupted.  
"...no, no one is, and it's weird 'cause his and Monkey's cars are out there..."

"_Do exactly what I say,_" The Voice cut her off again, "_put down the telephone, go outside and wait for Jazz. No one else."_  
That caught her right off guard. "Wait, Jazz? Are you..?"  
_"PUT DOWN THE TELEPHONE!"_The Voice snapped. Startled by the force of whoever it was' tone, Mallie quickly hung up and reached for her bag.

Her delay was going to cost her.

_Thanks to everyone on LJ and MSN who has been cheering/egging me on, offering full and helpful reviews, critiques, advice, and the occasional bit of insanity and has suffered through my piecemeal posting habits. _


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Warning for violence

Just as a side issue, I have been flamed a couple of times because of this and I want to make a couple of things clear. I have **not** set out to write the 'One True Anti-Sue Fic', as I said it's **_a_ **fic to show that it is possible for a teen girl to meet the Autobots and not fall in love. Also, I come from New Zealand so you will be seeing words like honour, colour and grey.

If you do spot an honest flub, please tell me which word and paragraph it's in and I'll be very thankful.

If you bother to flame me the only response, if any, that will be gotten from me from this point on will simply be this:

_Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves_.  
Brendan Behan

* * *

She had just slung the backpack on when a strange noise caught her attention. Mallie turned just in time to see the two tapes somehow fly off the desk and unfold into something...else. One looked like a guy in bluey-purple armour. The other was some sort of black cat thing. Neither looked very friendly.

Mallie backed up behind the desk and the dubious protection it offered. "Oh no...oh no..." She whimpered when the cat-thing opened it's mouth and growled, showing off a set of _very_ sharp looking fangs. The purple one smirked at her reaction. "Heh, Soundwave was right, there _is_ another squishy." He remarked to the cat.

For her part Mallie kept silent, pressed up against the wall and mentally chanting Jazz's name as if it could somehow make the Autobot get here faster. She didn't know much about their war, but she knew enough to recognise that Soundwave was one of the Decepticons and that was a Very Bad Thing.

The cat made a noise that seemed to be a reply to the other one, and he appeared to sigh in disappointment. "Y' sure he wants this one alive too?" He grumbled. "It's just a squishy."

She gulped. That didn't bode too well. The one corner of her mind that wasn't running around in circles in terror and screaming 'EVIL ALIEN ROBOTS!' quietly put two and two together and came to the conclusion that these two probably had something to do with the absence of her uncle and Monkey. It also very quickly decided that it probably would be a very bad idea to let these two take her to wherever they had taken the two men.

The two things, meanwhile, seemed to have come to a consensus. The purple one fixed it's attention back on her. "Hey squishy, either you come along quietly or I'll break your legs." He said, grinning the sort of grin that Staine usually wore before he 'accidentally' flipped some kid's locker door into their face or stuck out a foot to trip them.

Mallie made a very quick decision.

"NO!"

For reasons that escaped her at that particular moment in time, Mallie snatched up the first thing at hand (a stapler), threw it at him and bolted around the other side of the desk for the door, heart pounding in her chest and backpack dropping to the floor unnoticed in her flight. The cat thing snarled and she _knew_ without a doubt it was chasing her, and at that moment she'd have given anything to have been Victoria May who was a track and field star and probably could have outrun this thing, or at the very least had a chance to before it caught her and broke her legs.

Then all of a sudden she was outside in the late afternoon air and the snarl of an approaching high-performance engine could not have sounded sweeter.

But it wasn't Jazz who slid around the corner, tires squealing and smoking as he dug in and charged. Mallie registered a dark paint job (certainly** not **Jazz) with a splash of purple on the hood and instantly changed tack to run away from whoever it was, only to let out a cry as the cat thing chose that moment to catch up and send her sprawling in the grit.

It felt like her back and arms were on fire as she lay there, stunned by the force of the blow and gasping, the breath driven from her lungs. Clanking feet betrayed the approach of the purple one while the car screeched to a stop and twisted upright into his robot form. Mallie cringed as he stepped over the curb and crouched, mouth twisted into a dour expression as he looked down at her.

The thought 'Really Really BIG!' was the first of two coherent thing her rattled brain could produce. Though the second and _extremely_ appealing thought of 'RUN AWAY REALLY FAST!' would have been absolutely wonderful to put into action as soon as humanly possible, the slight problem of a very heavy thing pressing into the middle of her back put an end to that plan.

The car one seemed to sigh and poked at her left arm with one very large and blunt finger. "They always try and run away." He moaned, sounding not at all happy. "Don't they realise it's useless? We're all going to die anyway. Why doesn't anyone just accept it?"  
Out of the corner of her very limited field of vision, Mallie could see the purple guy shrug. "Who cares? I get to break it's legs." His face broke out into a malicious grin. "Just hold it right there, Ravage."

"How'sabout not?"

Several things seemed to happen all at once at that point.

The big Decepticon let out a horrendous screech, stumbled back and clasped one hand to his shoulder as a minor fireworks display seemed to go off there, a tawny-gold blur shot out from the alley beside the workshop, the weight on her back suddenly vanished and the purple guy let out a string of words that the one rational corner of Mallie's mind quietly decided were probably not for use in polite company.

Mallie hauled herself up enough to catch sight of a big white robot striding out from behind the factory down the road, gun in hand. For a moment she almost took off running, but her eyes landed on the big '4' emblazoned on his chest and she relaxed a fraction. That kind of a paint job only belonged to one Giant Alien Robot that she knew of, and that Robot was Jazz.

The little fact that he was looking about ready to shoot the Decepticon again was of no small reassurance to her either.

"Back off, Dead End." Jazz growled at the wounded Decepticon. "Somethin' tells me you ain't in a hurry t' end it all t'day."  
"Well," Dead End grunted as the hole in his shoulder spat sparks, "since an extended stay in an Autobot brig is rather distasteful and mind-numbing..." He turned and dropped back into car-mode, something squealing painfully as he gunned it and fled.

Jazz turned his not too friendly gaze on the purple guy who was currently bawling what were probably very unflattering words at the rapidly vanishing car. Mallie took the chance to try and crawl away while he was distracted, but stopped when a very heavy weight landed on her calf before she'd even gotten a few inches away. "Don't you move, squishy, or I'll really make you go squish!" He snarled, then looked back at Jazz with a sneer.  
"Jazz..."Mallie whimpered in sheer terror when she felt something that she was quite sure was a gun pressing into the back of her neck.

Somewhere in the background a massive fight was still raging between the black cat-thing and whatever the tawny yellow thing had been- lots of growls and yelps and the screech of metal against metal.

Jazz's mouth thinned and he carefully set down his gun, hands held up in a non-threatening gesture. "Hey, take it easy now, don'tcha do anything irreversible, you dig?" He soothed, taking a couple of slow steps forward.  
"Stop moving or you're gonna be digging a hole for this thing!" The little Decepticon snapped back, pressing the gun harder against Mallie's neck for effect.  
"Now, y'see, that's one o'the irreversible things I was talkin' about." Jazz replied, still moving, still perfectly calm.

Mallie bit her lip, feeling hot tears running down her cheeks as she remembered what happened two months prior that got Spike kicked out of the school.

"I said stop moving!" The purple guy yelled. "Stop moving now!"  
"Okay." Jazz suddenly grinned and half-lunged forward, one broad foot _whooshing_ through the air to connect with the little Decepticon's torso and send him soaring through the air in a graceful parabolic arc that probably terminated in the nearby wrecker's yard, judging by the crash.

But Mallie had no chance to ponder that as she was suddenly scooped up from the ground, surrounded by a flurry of motion and noises and found herself softly thumping into a well-padded driver's seat as a seatbelt looped itself around her. While her over-loaded brain tried to process what the spotted heck had just happened the passenger door was flung open and Jazz yelled at the tangle of tawny gold and matte black still scrapping before the reception door. "Steeljaw! Steeljaw, in, NOW!"

There was a pause and a tawny metal lion extricated itself from the knot, leaping into the passenger seat just as Jazz peeled out and away from the shop, engine roaring as he darted through several intersections and hit the main motorway out of town.

"Hey, chickadee..." Jazz verbally nudged as soon as the last of the suburbs were left in the dust. "You feeling okay there?"  
Mallie looked up blankly from examining her dirty and bloody hands, absently tucking a stray lock of hair out of her face. "Yeah, 'm fine..." she rather dully replied. "...think I'm gonna be sick..."

0o0o0

They reached the edge of the forest that surrounded the Ark a few minutes later, thankfully without any incidents. That Jazz had opened the window for her helped, but Steeljaw had kept himself plastered against the passenger door for the entire trip, just in case.

"We're almost there Mallie." Jazz's soothing voice came from everywhere inside the sports car. "We'll get someone t' take a look atcha an make sure you're alright, okay chicky?"  
"Okay." Mallory still hadn't shaken off the dull shock that had wrapped itself around her as soon as the adrenaline had stopped roaring through her blood. She stared listlessly at the blur of passing trees as they thickened into a dense forest band then suddenly stopped as they crossed over a small bridge, giving way to a field of rock and dust that spread out from the feet of the Autobot's volcanic home.

Even from this distance the rear end of their ship was clearly visible, jutting out from the rock like an afterthought.

"'s big..." Mallie gulped and pressed herself in Jazz's front seat, but her back was as stiff as a board, knuckles white as she clutched the strap of the seatbelt. Why did everything have to be so huge and intimidating all of a sudden?  
"Heh, yep, that's our home." Jazz's warm voice sounded again. "There's a couple o' bots waitin' there for us. One's our medic, he'll take care o' ya, an' Spike and the others are there t' meetcha too."  
"Oh...alright." Mallie settled back into the seat again. She was _inside_ a giant alien robot with another alien robot _right beside_ her, going _to_ the giant alien robot's giant base. Not like she could really disagree with him right now, no matter how much she wanted to.

All too soon they were pulling up on the hard-packed apron outside the base, right at the feet of two really tall red and white robots waiting there for them. Mallie got out after a little nudge from behind by Steeljaw, pulling her tattered light jacket around her and scared as heck as she looked up at the two robots, all the bad parts of all the alien movies she'd ever seen running through her head. Nothing good ever happened when humans went into the alien base except when they went there to blow it up, and she really didn't see herself doing that right now.

One of the two robots, red and white with a fireman's decal on his chest, leaned over and poked one large finger in her face. "Mallory Kirke?" He demanded.  
"Yes..." Mallie shied away from the finger belonging to the mech that she now recognised as owning the Voice from earlier.  
His eyes narrowed a bit, scrutinizing her. "You will tell me exactly what happened when you arrived at your uncle's workshop." He ordered, his tone one that just screamed it's expectation of immediate obedience. "I need every detail."  
"Hold it Red Alert!" The other robot snapped, red fists clenched. "She's injured. She's coming with me."

The proclamation didn't quite have the 'Crack of Doom' ring to it, but it was close enough.

"She's a witness and she needs to be debriefed!" Red Alert snapped back. "Her injuries are minor, you can tend to her afterwards."  
"Slaggitall, she needs medical attention and a chance to rest! She's been through enough without you interrogating her on top of it!" Ratchet snarled at the security director. He crouched and held his cupped hands out to the increasingly frightened girl, who immediately sidestepped away. As far as Mallie was concerned, 'interrogation' was never a good word for the humans in alien movies, right up there with anything that involved the word 'medical'. "C'mere kid, I'll take you inside." Ratchet tried to coax her, hands still held out.

Overstressed, overwhelmed and overtired, Mallie took one look at the two hands, the angry-looking face belonging to them and bolted with a shrill 'Leave me alone!', ignoring Jazz's yelp of protest and Steeljaw's surprised yowl.

She just managed to clear Jazz's back end and the giant robot legs when she thudded into something warm that smelled of oil and metal and enveloped her in a gentle bearhug. "Let _GO_!" Mallie shrieked and struggled, hot tears of exhaustion and frustration streaming down her cheeks. Why couldn't they leave her alone! She just wanted to go home, where it was safe and familiar and cars were cars and tapes didn't turn into something out of nightmares.

But the warm bands around her didn't let go; they just held her firmly as she spent her rage and was reduced to sobbing against the rough shirt. "I just want to go home..." Mallie eventually whimpered, sniffling.  
"I know honey, I know." A man's voice answered her.

Mallie looked up through tear-blurred vision and frowned, trying to place the face that looked so familiar. "...Mr Witwicky?"  
He smiled down at her. "Yep, that's me. How about you let Carly take you inside so you can have a shower and get cleaned up, okay?" He suggested, waving a blond girl closer. "And you look like you could do with some food too."

The promise of hot water, soap, clean clothes and food, not to mention being surrounded by people, actual, normal, not-liable-to-squish-you _people_, was just too tempting to pass up and she allowed herself to be passed over into the girl's care and be led meekly into the base.

When Mallie was out of earshot, Sparkplug glared up at an unrepentant looking Red Alert. "When we get a minute," he began rather testily, "we're going to have a little talk about using scare tactics on a scared girl."


	3. Chapter 3

Perhaps an hour later, fed, washed, dressed in clean clothes and her grazes, scratches and bruises attended to by Carly, Mallory found herself curled up on a couch in one of the guest rooms while Carly was off doing something. Mallie adjusted the thick blanket draped around her shoulders and looked about herself with some measure of curiosity. If it wasn't for the orange metal walls and floor the lounge could have come from just about any normal house she'd ever seen. It had rugs on the floor, decent furniture and some beautiful scenic photos hung on the walls.

But a scene of a desert sunrise brought tears pricking in her eyes, quickly bringing with it a rising tide of guilt. Her uncle had a similar photo hanging in his office, just over his desk. Now he was missing, probably because of those two Decepticon tape things and Monkey was gone too and her parents were probably worried sick about her and what was she going to tell them and here she was sitting warm and comfortable while who knew what was being done to Uncle Jake and Monkey...

"Prrroow?"

"Huh?" Her train of thought broken, Mallie looked down to see a little tabby cat parading around her feet. The cat looked up at her adoringly and mewed again, rubbing one furry cheek against her shin. Mallie smiled and picked it up, discovering in the process that the cat was missing one foreleg. "Aw, poor thing, what happened to you?" Mallie crooned, put the cat on her lap and scratched it behind one ear. The cat responded with an ecstatic purr and kneaded her leg with it's front paw, head turning to move the scratching fingers to a point under it's chin.

"I see you've met Twostroke."

Mallie jumped at the unfamiliar voice from behind, instantly curling her arms protectively around the little cat while she looked for the speaker. Twostroke however, squirmed her way free and jumped up on the back of the couch to greet the yellow Autobot who had somehow entered the room without her noticing. "Uh...hi?" Mallie squeaked.

The Autobot, who Mallie noticed was much shorter than Jazz and therefore seemed much less intimidating, gave Twostroke a quick pat, came around the couch and knelt. "Hey, relax." He smiled, offering one hand. "My name's Bumblebee, I'm one of Spike's friends."

She gingerly took his hand and shook it, absently noting that the metal was warmer than she expected and seemed to hum with a faint vibration. "Hi." Mallie repeated, tucking the blanket closer around herself as a barrier between herself and the mech. "Is that Red Alert guy or the other one wanting to see me?" Mallie tried to hide the quaver in her voice, neither of them had seemed very nice and she did _not_ want to be left in their company for any length of time. In movies a human alone in an alien base with an alien always meant bad things for the human.

"No," Bumblebee smiled reassuringly, "Carly managed to convince Ratchet, the other one, that you were fine, and Red can't fit in here so he can't interview you." He shifted a bit to sit comfortably now that he was fairly sure that Mallie wasn't going to try and run away. Ideally one of their resident humans would have debriefed Mallie and hopefully unearthed some clues as to why her uncle's shop had been targeted but they still needed a fair bit of training first. Bumblebee was pretty sure that with his non-threatening manner and looks he could handle the task easily, hence why he'd volunteered. "So Mallie, how long have you known Spike?" He asked.

It didn't take much coaxing for him to get the full story, or at least as much as Mallie knew. She'd met Spike at the beginning of the prior school year- they'd had the same mathematics and history teachers. This year they'd had the same mathematics teacher again and had been study partners for a little while. Then had come the fight with Staine two months ago, followed less than a week later by the attack from three bored Seekers who'd seen Spike entering the school at the end of lunch bell. Bumblebee was familiar with that part of the story- he and Hound had been on patrol in the city when Spike had pressed the panic button on his pager.

Needless to say it was then that Spike had been 'asked' to leave the school by the principal, the school board and a committee of angry parents. The parents were justifiably worried about their children, but in the Autobots' collective opinion they were far too eager to lay blame, attack Spike and Sparkplug, be victims and get on the national news networks. Mallie hadn't seen Spike until she'd taken up the temporary job at Killer Rig to fill in for Gracie. Everything had been fine and she hadn't noticed anything strange until she arrived this afternoon to find the shop empty.

Carly arrived while they were talking and brought with her a welcome tray of refreshments- home made lemonade for herself and Mallie and a cube of energon for Bumblebee. Mallie watched in astonishment as Bumblebee downed the liquid-form energy. "What is that stuff?" She asked, sitting up to take a closer look. Bumblebee obliged her curiosity and held the cube where she could see it.

"We call it energon." He explained, moving the cube a little to make the pinkish liquid slosh around inside. "It's a type of processed energy and the main fuel for our kind. Usually it comes in cubes like this, but we can get concentrated crystals for emergency rations or in little sticks called energon goodies, our version of candy." Bumblebee smiled as several expressions flitted over Mallie's face while she processed the idea of robots having candy.

"Huh... does it taste like anything?" She asked, still watching the cube but wise enough not to touch it.

"Autobots don't actually have a sense of taste." Carly spoke up. "They can feel texture and energy signatures though." She pointed to the cube, calling up the memories of a long conversation with Spike to help her describe it in terms a human would understand. "Like that, energon is like cooking oil because it has a smooth energy signature. Energon rations are like a mouth full of rock salt and energon goodies are like molasses cookies."

"Weird." Mallie made a face at the notion of anyone willingly eating something that could be compared to a mouth full of rock salt. There was silence for a moment and Twostroke clambered up Bumblebee's arm to sit on his shoulder and nuzzle the edge of his helm. Mallie glanced over at the picture of the desert sunrise again and drew the blanket tighter around herself with a shiver. "Bumblebee? My uncle and Monkey... what are the Decepticons going to do to them?" The thought that if her uncle hadn't scribbled that note she would know because she would be there with them was one that she didn't want to entertain for long.

Bumblebee shifted a little and chose his words carefully. "They're holding them hostage right now, but we're going to bring them back." He explained as gently as he could. Megatron had called the Ark to gloat and provoke about five minutes before Jazz had arrived with his passengers, the deliberate placement of the camera showing not only the two humans but ranks of machinery that was the sort of stuff from nightmares. The words the tyrant had used to describe the humans had been different too- beginning with 'subjects' and ending with 'experiment'.

Hook had apparently been tinkering with the concept behind 'Autobot X' and was ready to begin testing. Megatron had quite a list of things he wanted in return for not testing it on Monkey and Jake Kirke, although no Autobot was under the illusion that he wouldn't turn around and use it anyway.

Mallie drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "I wish there was something I could do..." She sniffed. "I should call my parents, they're gonna be so worried about me... shoulda done something when that bluey-purple guy and the cat thing appeared..."

"Hey now," Carly slipped a comforting arm around the teen's shoulders, "you did the right thing by running. Me, I was stupid and almost got myself killed for it. I was just lucky that Ironhide had seen me and came after me."

"Who's Ironhide?" Mallie rubbed at her nose.

Carly smiled. "You'd like him. He's like a big old cowboy, gruff and grumble on the outside, softy on the inside. Maybe we can go for a walk around later and I can introduce you to him after you call your parents."

"Okay...can we go and see Trailbreaker too? Spike introduced me to him..."

Bumblebee carefully dislodged Twostroke, put her on the couch and quietly left while the girls talked, large feet barely making any noise on the rugs. Jazz, Prowl and Sparkplug were waiting for him when he slipped out into the hall. "How is she?" Sparkplug was the first to speak, his worry for the girl clear.

"Calmer, but she's still pretty worried about her uncle and Monkey." Bumblebee frowned and transmitted the transcript of his conversation to Prowl and Jazz. "She didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until today." He added for Sparkplug's benefit.

"It seems a little too convenient that this attack has only come after Mallory's arrival, especially as she is someone whom Spike is familiar with." Prowl rubbed his chin in though, door wings flicking once. "Jazz, what is the status of the rest of our local suppliers and their families?"

"I got Blaster and his crew callin' t' check on 'em all." Jazz reported and crossed his arms, mouth drawn into a thin line. "Silverbolt and his boys, Blades an' Powerglide are all doin' flyovers t' double check and I sent First Aid and Streetwise t' go check on Gracie."

He looked to Prowl. _"What are we doin' 'bout Megatron's revamped 'X' threat?"_ Jazz asked over the radio. Sparkplug was still blaming himself over what had happened to Spike in the original 'Autobot X' fiasco and no one wanted to compound it by reminding him that Megatron was now threatening to inflict it on others. _"I still can't believe we missed this...shoulda known Megatron was up to something when he started goin' after medical labs an' that biotech company."_ Jazz frowned behind his visor, mouth twisting. _"Sorry Prowl, I dropped the ball on this one."_

"_There is no need to apologise, Jazz. In any case, Blaster was able to narrow down the transmission location. Mirage and Hound are scouting the area now."_ Prowl gently diverted Jazz away from self-recriminations and into business, making sure he included Bumblebee in the loop as he formed his reply.

"_Megatron's decision to attempt to copy the process is a logical one." _Prowl flicked his doorwings and began to explain. "_Drones, while cheap and loyal, have no real ability to think for themselves and are only truly useful in large numbers to swarm a position, provided you have the manufacturing capabilities to produce and maintain such numbers. Sparks are the only way to give drones true thinking capabilities but they are too rare and valuable these days to risk giving them to cannon fodder. If Megatron can transfer the life from a human into a mech shell and keep it relatively stable he will have a ready supply of thinking drones to swell his ranks, here and on Cybertron_." Prowl's door wings flattened against his shoulders, the only external sign of the disgust and horror he felt.

That was a thought that no one wished to contemplate for long. The situation on their home world was already dire enough without the Decepticons getting additional reinforcements.

"Sparkplug, please ensure that Mallory stays on base and see what other information you can find from her. I believe there is a telephone in the next room that she can use to contact her parents." Prowl requested aloud, breaking the momentary silence.

"Got it. Page me if anything happens." Sparkplug nodded to the three and went into the room.

Prowl waited until the door closed before continuing. "Jazz, we are going to update Prime, Bumblebee, alert Ratchet, Skyfire, Perceptor and Wheeljack. I want all possible options examined should we arrive too late."

"Hold up..." Jazz indicated for pause and touched two fingers to the side of his head. "...that was Streets, him and Aid are at Gracie's flat." The Porsche grimaced as he received the last of the report. Were he human he would have been swallowing back against the bitter taste of bile. "It ain't good."


End file.
